Not a simple matter of good luck! Nick is a vulcanic and enthusiast mind, with many stories about being involved in the scene since the 80’s. So sit down, put some heavy sounds on and be ready to book your flight to Lisbon for later this year!
Q – Hi Nick, first of all thank you for taking the time to answer our questions about Reverence Valada! I can see that you’re also part of Club AC30, one of very first and few labels in past decade – with Sonic Cathedral – to release new shoegaze and reverb bands. Can you tell us more about your previous involvement with this scene?
Nick – I’ve been involved with this sort of stuff for years. I had a fanzine in the 80‘s with my friend Paul May called Sowing Seeds where we interviewed bands like Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Spacemen 3, Loop etc. That was ’86 to ’88, and then I got involved with The Telescopes at the end of the 80’s and started a cherecord label called Cheree Records, that kinda morphed into Che Trading. That all ended in 2000 when our deal with Warners went bad, and then in 2003 my brother Robin started Club AC30, mainly to promote live shows, and I got involved with that on the label side. I’ve always been into underground noisy bands, whether it’s shoegaze or psych or whatever.
I never intended to get involved in music in Portugal, as far as I was concerned I left all that behind in London. But then things were going well with Club AC30 and I went to Fuji Festival with Ringo Deathstarr in 2011 and it kinda really made me miss all that stuff. Then Ringo got this European tour with Smashing Pumpkins which ended with two shows at the bullring in Lisbon, they had a day off the next day before flying to Japan, so I asked around and got them a show at my local cultural centre in Cartaxo. It was the first time a band like this had come to Cartaxo in 20 years, and about 100 people showed up. Elliot got all the crowd up on stage and they played every song they knew and then started doing covers. It was great. Ringo Deathstarr came back and played at Reverence last year.
After that it was obvious that we should try and do this again, so I started a non-profit collective called Cartaxo Sessions with a group of local people, and we began booking shows. Not many, maybe one a month or something. And it was quite tough to persuade booking agents to give us a chance really, especially as there was not much of a scene in Portugal at the time. There were a handful of agents that were open to getting their bands into Southern Europe and they happened to be booking mainly psych bands, so we had a whole run of really great pysch/noise shows, The Telescopes, Dead Skeletons, Lumerians, The Lucid Dream, stuff like that.
Then I met the European manager of Psychic TV who was living in Portugal at the time, in an even more remote area than we were. He would come to the Cartaxo shows. So then the next time Psychic TV came to Europe we brought them to Cartaxo, which was amazing. I think then the idea of doing something a bit bigger started to form.
Nick – Promoting in Portugal is completely different to promoting in London. There are loads of promoters and loads of competition in London, whereas in Portugal there’s no competition, although that’s changing a bit now. On the other hand it costs money to get a band to Portugal, they either have to fly in, or they tour there from Spain, and it’s expensive. But there’s a huge interest in underground music in Portugal. Some of the shows we’ve had there have been similar sized audiences as the London shows. Dead Skeletons played a mental show in Cartaxo to about 175 people, A Place To Bury Strangers played their first ever show in Portugal at our place in Cartaxo and had about 250 people. And this is like a band coming to the UK and just doing a show in Bedford.
With Reverence I think there was a certain amount of trepidation among the local people because we were getting so much publicity and it was all focused around this being an alternative psychedelic rock festival, we had Hawkwind and Psychic TV and they kinda look unkempt, long hair, tattoos etc. But ultimately they discovered what we all know, which is that rock and metal fans are peaceful and respectful on the whole. We didn’t have a single incident of violence or vandalism and I think the only casualty was when Liz Buckingham from Electric Wizard cut her finger.
The local town hall was very supportive, and it’s really great for our area to be getting some international recognition. This is a really agricultural region, and Valada is a sleepy hamlet on the side of the River Tejo, which is a very wide and beautiful river that goes all the way down to Lisbon. Our district is famous for wine and tomatoes, and the festival is surrounded by vineyards and tomato fields.
We have almost the same area as Nos Alive, and they have 50000 people! We also have a really great 15 acre campsite that’s right next to the festival. In addition you have almost guaranteed beautiful weather, 45kms from Lisbon where there’s an international airport served by both Easyjet and Ryanair, and excellent Portuguese food, wine and beer.
Having said that, people wouldn’t come to Reverence if it wasn’t for the line-up, so obviously this does play a big part. To us the smaller bands on the bill are as important as the big ones, I think last year the band I most wanted to see out of the whole line-up was Spindrift. So it’s not necessarily the sort of festival where you’re going to see huge bands, but you will see a lot of great bands, even if you haven’t heard of most of them!Q – Which bands are you really proud to have brought to Valada last year, and which ones are you more looking forward to have this year?
Nick – I’m proud of the whole bill from last year, it was a massive effort from a bunch of people and it came together really nicely. Obviously it was great having Hawkwind and The Black Angels play their first shows in Portugal at Reverence, but there were a lot of great moments, especially on the smaller stages. We did some stuff last year that I think has never really been done before, certainly in Portugal. Having bands playing from midday right through to 6am, 30 minute sets, 20 minute changeovers, all the production nightmares that go along with that. There’s a crazy video floating around of Jiboia closing out the festival at 7am Sunday morning, it’s daylight and there’s still people jumping around.This year we have longer sets and longer changeovers, we were intending to have fewer bands, but it’s kinda not really working out that way, so we will have one of the smaller stages running against the main stage, which has given us a few more slots. This year I’m really happy we got Sleep and The Horrors of course, but there’s a bunch of smaller bands I’m really looking forward to seeing, Pity Sex in particular, Blown Out, Electric Moon. Yeah it’s going to be great.
Photo by Jorge Pereira
Nick – I couldn’t tell you how many people worked at the festival last year! With the security and production people, box office and bar staff, caterers, and volunteers probably something around 150. It is very good for the local area, all the coffee shops in Valada were open 24 hours and were full the whole time. The local folklore dance group opened up the indoor market in Valada and turned that into a coffee-shop that was open the whole time. All the local hotels were full. The hotel in Santarem where all the bands stay ended up being the rock-n-roll hotel for the weekend, Psychic TV did a photo session in their pool fully clothed.
Q – Can you give some advice to people coming to the festival this year? What they should bring and what they should leave at home to have the best festival’s experience ever?
Nick – It’s very easy to get to Reverence, you fly into Lisbon, then you go to either Oriente or Santa Appolonia station and take a Regional train to Reguengo station, it costs about €5. We have a very large and beautiful campsite with lots of trees, and this year there will also be luxury camping facilities provided by Sleep Em All. There are hotels in Cartaxo and Santarem, and I think this year there will be a special bus from Cartaxo to the festival. For the festival people need to bring a sun hat, sun cream and mosquito repellent. I recommend people take some time and travel around a bit. There’s a lot more to Portugal than beaches and Port wine!
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